Newsletters: Newsbites

SANS NewsBites is a semiweekly high-level executive summary of the most important news articles that have been published on computer security during the last week. Each news item is very briefly summarized and includes a reference on the web for detailed information, if possible.

Spend five minutes per week to keep up with the high-level perspective of all the latest security news. New issues are delivered free every Tuesday and Friday.

Volume XIV - Issue #15

February 21, 2012

A good news story: The CISO of one of the largest Midwest power
companies gave a talk at the Orlando SCADA Security Summit where he told
the audience he had implemented the 20 Critical Controls and, for the
first time, senior management understood what needed to be done in cyber
security and they made his budget "base." Apparently that means he
doesn't have to fight for budget to fix security. On top of the
extraordinary success with the 20 Critical Controls at the State
Department, his story is another good reason that 2012 is a good time
to implement the 20 critical controls. And that's especially true
because of NSA's initiative to lead by example in implementing them. If
you are going to implement them and did not get the 20 Critical Controls
poster with the NSA rankings, send me an email at paller@sans.org with
your name organization and surface mail address. The poster gives you
great top cover to get management support because it is a joint document
of SANS US DHS, UK CPNI and Australia's DSD and includes the NSA
rankings.

Plus San Francisco, Stuttgart, Boston, Abu Dhabi, and Toronto all in the next 90 days. For a list of all upcoming events, on-line and live: http://www.sans.org/index.php ************************************************************************

TOP OF THE NEWS

Gen. Keith Alexander's warning of a cyberattack on the electrical grid has come in White House meetings and in "other private sessions," the Journal writes, citing "people familiar with the gatherings." Although the so-called hacktivists have not indicated a desire to disrupt the power system, the article continues, "some federal officials believe Anonymous is headed in a more disruptive direction," pointing to the Anonymous announcement last week that members will attempt to shut down the Internet on March 31. Computer security experts doubt that "Operation Global Blackout" will succeed. -http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/02/report-nsa-chief-sees-possible-anonymous-hit-on-power-grid/1#.T0Powpj9CaE

Republican legislators plan to introduce their own cyber security bill. The Democratic bill already introduced would give more authority to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Republicans' bill would grant more authority to the US Cyber Command and the National Security Agency (NSA). One of the forthcoming bill's sponsors, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) said that the Democrats' bill was moving too fast and that it would make DHS into a "super regulator." -http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/20/mccain-promises-gop-alternative-to-super-regulator-cybersecurity-bill/

US authorities have issued a superseding indictment in the Megaupload case, adding a number of charges, including counts of criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and wire fraud. Associated websites and several people believed to be in the company's upper echelons were arrested last month. The indictment also notes that while the site claimed 180 million registered users, figures on January 19 showed just over one-third that number, and records indicate that less than 10 percent of those users used Megaupload to upload files. Megaupload maintains it responded to reports of pirated content in a timely manner. -http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/17/justice/megaupload-com-indictment/index.html-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17080942

The US government has asked the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to reject an appeal filed on behalf of Ramona Fricosu, maintaining that an order forcing her to decrypt her laptop would violate her constitutional rights. Fricosu is a defendant in a bank fraud case. A laptop computer found in her possession is protected by heavy-duty encryption, and prosecutors want to know what is on that machine. Prosecutors have pointed out that appellate courts prefer not to take cases until after a verdict has been reached. -http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/laptop-decryption-appeal/

Hackers have targeted a network of cameras that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered to be installed to help alleviate concerns about vote-rigging in the upcoming March election. Putin ordered two cameras to be placed in each of the 91,000 polling places; so far, 54,000 of the polling stations have cameras installed. They are intended to stream footage of activity at the sites, but have fallen prey to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. -http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-russia-election-putin-idUSTRE81G1J920120217

John Pescatore is Vice President at Gartner Inc.; he has worked in computer and network security since 1978.

Stephen Northcutt founded the GIAC certification and is President of STI, The Premier Skills-Based Cyber Security Graduate School, www.sans.edu.

Dr. Johannes Ullrich is Chief Technology Officer of the Internet Storm Center and Dean of the Faculty of the graduate school at the SANS Technology Institute.

Ed Skoudis is co-founder of CounterHackChallenges, the nation's top producer of cyber ranges, simulations, and competitive challenges, now used from high schools to the Air Force. He is also author and lead instructor of the SANS Hacker Exploits and Incident Handling course, and Penetration Testing course..

William Hugh Murray is an executive consultant and trainer in Information Assurance and Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Rob Lee is the curriculum lead instructor for the SANS Institute's computer forensic courses (computer-forensics.sans.org) and a Director at the incident response company Mandiant.

Rohit Dhamankar is a security professional currently involved in independent security research.

Tom Liston is a Senior Security Consultant and Malware Analyst for InGuardians, a handler for the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center, and co-author of the book Counter Hack Reloaded.

Dr. Eric Cole is an instructor, author and fellow with The SANS Institute. He has written five books, including Insider Threat and he is a founder with Secure Anchor Consulting.

Ron Dick directed the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) at the FBI and served as President of the InfraGard National Members Alliance - with more than 22,000 members.

Mason Brown is one of a very small number of people in the information security field who have held a top management position in a Fortune 50 company (Alcoa). He is leading SANS' global initiative to improve application security.

David Hoelzer is the director of research & principal examiner for Enclave Forensics and a senior fellow with the SANS Technology Institute.

Alan Paller is director of research at the SANS Institute.

Marcus J. Ranum built the first firewall for the White House and is widely recognized as a security products designer and industry innovator.

Clint Kreitner is the founding President and CEO of The Center for Internet Security.

Brian Honan is an independent security consultant based in Dublin, Ireland.

David Turley is SANS infrastructure manager and serves as production manager and final editor on SANS NewsBites.

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